How to Become a Creative Graphic Designer? 15 Best Tips

Designing is already a creative art, so if you are a creative graphic designer, then you already are a creative soul.

Now the thing is that sometimes due to time crunch, creativity takes a backseat and inspired designs become the easy way out to satiate the taste buds of customers.

Graphic designing is a field where you will find the perfect combination of technology and creativity. So, some of them get stuck in learning the technology deeply.

But, if you really want to become one of the best creative graphic designers, then you will have to undergo formal training for that, education is very much important. Without proper knowledge, you won’t be able to enhance your creativity.

What Does Exactly the Creative Graphic Designer do?

The graphic designer is responsible for coming up with ideas and design for brochures, advertisement as well as marketing materials.

They are not the face of the advertisements, instead they work behind the closed doors, in front of their computers and they also have access to the drafting tools.

You will find that some graphic designers work on their own as it is a business for them, but then there are few others who work in big firms as part of a team dedicated for graphic designing.

Here is a list of work that is generally associated with graphic designing and they are book designing, logos, web designing, typography, advertising, packaging, etc.

The main objective of a graphic designer is to convey a message to its customer, so while designing something they must keep this in mind.

Skills Required for Becoming a Graphic Designer:

Analytical skills and creativity are the two things that are required in any graphic designer. There are many designers, who feel more comfortable in chalking out the rough sketch on paper, so that they can give an idea about their thought process and once the client finalizes it, they start the final sketch on the computer.

This is a common practice amongst many graphic designers. Another important thing in the life of a graphic designer is time management. They have to take care of many tasks at a go, therefore, if they are not good with their time, then they are bound to miss the deadline.

Communication is another skill, which helps the graphic designers in their work because they have to communicate with the client about what the client is expecting and whether they are on the right path or not.

The work of the graphic designer is to make sure that the creative graphic designing they are creating conveys the emotions and answers all the questions visually.

In short, the visual display that they will generate must make an impact on the mind of the customers. The best quality that a graphic designer can possess is the quality of a visual thinker who can effectively and creatively put up all his thoughts on the canvas.

How to Become a Creative Graphic Designer?

If you want to be a creative graphic designer, then you will have to acquire the skills for that too, and that can only be achieved when you have proper knowledge about the matter.

The techniques in graphic designing is ever changing and in order to keep up with that pace, you will have to continue your knowledge quest.

1. Collect every piece that inspires:

No matter where you are, you have to keep your eyes open for inspiration and if there is something which inspires you, then collect it and keep it with you in a file.

Make a collection of different things and stack them up in the folder or a box, so that you can access them anytime you want.

If, in case, you are running out of ideas, then refer to all these collections of yours and you will see how wonderful and creative ideas you can get out of it.

The Internet is one place where you can explore as much as you want and you can save all your inspiration in one place on your system.

2. Blogs are a great source:

Now everybody writes a blog and that is definitely a good thing because when you have a graphic designer write a blog about his life and his creativity, then it makes for a very good read, you can get inspirations from there too.

A lot can be learnt from their blogs because they have the experience, which can be useful for you.

3. Click photographs:

Click some nice pics and save it for later references. Photographs are a good way of exercising the right light, color and composition.

If you can get it right, then it will be a huge boost for your creativity. But while using any photograph as your inspiration, remember to respect the copyright issue.

4. Create free sample:

When you are trying to enhance your creative skills, then the most important thing that you need is to collate data and work with them to recreate some brands or letterheads, logo, mock website or even business cards.

Keep all these designs handy, when you are trying to impress some client, then your creative catalogue will help you gain their confidence. They will know that your action match up to your words.

5. Communicate with other designers:

There are events where all the great minds come together, if you can attend one such event, then it will be a great way of enhancing your skill.

You can look for people who are highly experienced and talented too.

6. Explore the reality:

As a graphic designer you can get inspired by the movie Avatar, but coming out with such a spectacular thing as a graphic designer is a far off dream.

It is not due to the reason that the graphic designers are not creative enough, but actually the problem is, as a graphic designer you won’t be allowed so much budget and the technology that can create such a specter.

If you want the audience to look at your creativity too, then you have to pick up a piece of reality and make them wonder, that it was so close yet nobody looked at it the way you have done. This will help you prove your potential as a creative graphic designer.

7. Let the words explain its own meaning:

Some graphic designers get into the trap of explaining the words that they get from the client.

If you want to explore your creativity, then let the word illustrate itself. You will sometimes see that the film logo describes the genre of the film, so if it is comedy film, then the name of the film will be written in a way, which will give out the comic feeling.

So, as a creative graphic designer, if you get a word, then explore the feeling of that and portray it in that way.

8. More can be fun:

There is a phrase which says that ‘Less is More’, but you can explore your creativity by incorporating more and more thing in one logo without cluttering it out.

It is not easy to work out multiple ideas in one logo and come up with something interesting because in most cases, you will find that it ends up looking like a Christmas Tree.

9. Make the look interesting:

The biggest challenge is to make the interesting statement look equally interesting too. It can only be accomplished by a graphic designer who is creative enough to come up with ideas that will match up with the statement.

10. Tutorials come in handy:

If you are new or you are exploring new avenues that are not your strong foothold, then tutorials are the best way to learn some new tricks.

Work with them to get used to the new methods and continue doing so unless until you are a pro at that. Improvise your skills and the tutorials will help you do that with ease.

11. Redesign other people’s work:

If you come across some design which is highly creative, then you can redesign it and see for yourself whether you can outshine the design or not. If you can, then you will be able to figure out where the designer went wrong and it will definitely help you improve your skills.

12. Get a degree:

Actually this is the first thing to do, in case you do not possess any formal degree of graphic designing because this will help you understand the subject better.

Not only that, you will also get to know about the technologies that are put to use in order to come up with some amazing creative designs.

13. Travelling is another resource:

Creativity is enhanced when you travel a lot because, when you move from one country to the other or even moving from one place to another, it will make you witness the cultural changes that are part of the society.

Moreover, we all know that cultural changes are a great inspiration, so when you are in a field of high creativity, then travelling will surely help you explore the nuance of each culture and at the end you will gather so much experience that it will have enough fodder to come up with some brilliant creativity.

14. Practices makes a man perfect:

Never give up on sketching, you will be able to come up with creative things when you practice a lot on your designs and master the art.

When you are confident about what you do, then you will be able to experiment more and more and in a way creativity has a lot to do with experimenting.

You have to tread the path that you have never been and see the outcomes. You have to sketch a lot as that will only help you to come up with some concrete ideas.

15. The problem is the solution:

Problem and designing goes hand to hand, but the main issue with this is that most problems will be boring. You have to don the creative cap and make it an interesting one for your audience.

Its your creativity that will make even the boring thing look interesting. Most of the times you will find the clients coming up with some vague ideas and not just that they want that you come up with some spectacular thing within a budget that is too small, then it is a challenge for you to accept it and come up with some amazing idea, which will impress the client as well. You can take some ideas from others as well.